Hey Bernie, Is this true?

[RAZOR]

Originally Posted by boxhead

Well I for one as an Australian would much rather live in this country I call home instead of America.
As stated by Richard, the gun control laws in Australia have been a good thing, I am one of the people who handed in my gun. I could have kept it as I was a member of a gun club and it was kept in a gun safe, but I chose not to.
I just wonder now that America is going down the **** tube financially, with all those honest law abiding citizens loosing there income, just how many will look at that gun they keep in there bed side draw (honestly officer it is only to protect myself) will decide that robbing the local petrol station is one way they will put food on the table.
This is an Australian law that I believe a vast majority of Australians would agree with.
You keep your laws in America just the way you like it (and keep burying your children because they went to school today)

My another verbal attack,you Aussies do rant, I can see why they don't want you to have guns.

[boxhead]

Originally Posted by RAZOR

My another verbal attack,you Aussies do rant, I can see why they don't want you to have guns.

Sorry Razor, not a verbal attack, mearly stating a fact.

After all it is Clois who has attacked the Australian way of living by claiming that Australia is an unsafe place to live.

I am sure on a per head capita there are more gun related robberies, more gun related injuries and more gun related deaths in the good old USA than in Australia.
And that would be simply due to the fact that there are more guns available.

Take the guns away and the chances of one being used is far less.

Now I know your going to say that "The bad guys will not hand there guns in" yes this is a fact, but by removing the guns that are not in the bad guys hands lessens the chance of them getting another one or more guns.

Now you will say that robberies will go up because Joe Citizen can not defend himself.
Isnt it better to get robbed than shot because you tried to defend yourself?

[Aussie Mike]

I'm an Australian gun owner. I've been shooting for about 25 years.

Back in the 1996 a fellow named Martin Bryant killed 35 people and injured another 21. He went on a shooting spree in Port Arthur, Tasmania. I believe this incident still rates as one of the worlds largest mass shootings in recent years.

Tasmania had about the laxest gun laws in the country at the time and it was fairly easy to source a semi automatic center fire rifle that Bryant used so effectively. The rest of the county had already pretty much banned these firearms without a special permit. A move that I agree with to a certain extent since an AK47 or an M16 is pretty much an overkill for hunting.

After Bryant's rampage at Port Arthur there was a public outcry and shouts about banning guns. This was beat up by the press to great effect. Especially when they put a bunch of red neck pro gun people in front of the cameras who also happened to have a load of dodgy nationalist political views as well. The end result was that most regular folks thought us shooters were a bunch nut cases if these people are representative.

The government decided despite mass protests from shooters to tighten up the laws and make them uniform for the whole country. This meant a ban on all semi automatic fire arms and pump action shot guns. They then instigated a buy back program where you had to hand in your fire arm and were financially compensated.

I handed in a Pump action shot gun and 2x semi auto .22 rim fires. The pump gun was great for duck shooting, general rabbit hunting and the odd go at trap shooting. The .22 rifles were great rabbit rifles.

I never replaced the shotgun as to get a reasonable Under Over 12 gage was about $2K at the time and they only gave me $500 for my old shotgun.

It was sad to see guys handing in old browning semi auto shot guns that their grand fathers had owned and handed down. Knowing that later these heirlooms would be crushed and destroyed, the small financial compensation doesn't cover it.

It was a sad time for me and many other responsible shooters as the image of our sport was irrecoverably damaged. Even when our shooters are winning golds at the Olympic games 2 months after Port Arthur and the Commonwealth games 2 years later The media reports are awkward and uncomfortable. The Australian public still thinking we were all gun toting crazies.

I'm was a keen competition target shooter and in the years since I've seen so many target clubs fold and disappear. Many of these are clubs had been in operation for more than 100 years. Lack of new shooters coming through and loss of safety zones behind rifle ranges has seen the sport dwindle.

A fire arm was never an option for home defense in this country. The laws even before Port Arthur were pretty strict on that front. The storage requirements for fire arms and ammunition have always been strict. Having your gun in a locked gun safe with the ammunition in another locked box meant that running to grab your rifle was not a quick and easy thing to do and shooting an invader in your home could be construed as premeditated. Better to keep a cricket bat under the bed or a 9 iron in the wardrobe.

So all the honest responsible shooters handed in their firearms but we still have gun related homicides. I think this is because the type of people who commit gun related homicides are not the type to have a legally registered fire arm let alone hand it in when asked.

I don't worry about those people though since they spend most of their time shooting each other.

For more info on Port Arthur have a read of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Ar...cre_(Australia)

There's also some good info on the history of gun laws in Australia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia

Cheers

[COBRA427]

My 2 cents on this topic, if I may:

Living in America, we have every single nationality , race, religious belief and language spoken ,..... and that's just in California!! That may have something to do with the degree of violence in our country.

To my fellow Cobra brothers, if you are ok with turning in all your firearms to the government, that's fine with me. I'm not trying to have a pissing contest on whose country's gun laws are better or worse.

At least for right now, if I deem it necessary to own a pistol or shotgun and keep it in my house for defensive purposes, I have the legal RIGHT to do so. If my neighbor doesn't want a gun in his house, then that's his CHOICE. When a government decides for a whole country that they cannot keep a pistol in their end tables, who will then help defend them when an intruder(s) enters their house at 3:19AM for not so benevolent purposes?

"boxhead": What if a criminal breaks into your house with the intent on robbery, but while there, holding a gun on your whole family, takes a fancy to your wife or your 2 adorable 11 and 13yr. old daughters?

I prefer to to have the right to defend myself.

[turnpike boy]

Clois' post is actually some pretty old material, pulled together about a year or so after the great Australian gun ban took effect. The purpose of that data was to impart to Americans generally, and gun-control-advocates specifically, that there is a downside to trying to wipe out private ownership of firearms. Whether it did or not is a matter of ample conjecture. Since that ban has been in place for several years now, it would be good to see some more-current data to see if there actually is a difference beyond subjective good feelings.

Different cultures breed different perspectives on life - too many differences between here and there to make much out of simple data. To each their own. Amazingly enough, there are still many who want to live in The Sudan or in Chad, too.

It's good to see there is some rationale applied to the give-backs, and not just simple emotional bile. It deserves to be mentioned, at least in passing, that those dreaded military style semi autos represent an insignificant proportion of gun crime here in America. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/guic.pdf Again, this data is pretty old, but factual nonetheless.

[Aussie Mike]

Originally Posted by turnpike boy

It's good to see there is some rationale applied to the give-backs, and not just simple emotional bile. It deserves to be mentioned, at least in passing, that those dreaded military style semi autos represent an insignificant proportion of gun crime here in America. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/guic.pdf Again, this data is pretty old, but factual nonetheless.

Interesting that the vast majority of gun crime is hand guns. We have much fewer hand guns in Australia due to our stric laws for hand gun ownership. Anyone wanting to own one can only realisticly use it at a gun range and the licensing and storage requirements have been tough for a very long time. To keep a hand gun My current rifle safe wouldn't pass and it's made from 3mm steel plate with internal hinges and 3 locking points.

You also need more than a letter from your mum to get a hand gun licence.

The more common firearm for criminals for a long time is sawn off shotguns and rifles. All modifications to make the weapon easier to conceal.

I think the US is in a difficult position with gun control. If Obama wants to do anything about it he'll have a difficult time. You already have such a huge number in circulation and a whole industry and economy revolving around them. The gun is so entrenched in US culture that you can't let it go.

Cheers

[Fred Douglass]

...."With guns, we are citizens......Without guns, we are subjects (or serfs).."

TJ---although a liberal (on most subjects) and a Freethinker (and therefore probably an atheist) STILL realized that an armed citizenry was the ONLY guarantee that the government would serve the people's interest and not the other way around. However---unnerving and unbelievable amounts of ignorance and sheeplike passivity have made the prospect of armed rebellion a moot point....

Gone are the days!

[turnpike boy]

Originally Posted by Fred Douglass

Gone are the days!

Yes, indeed....gone over seven decades ago, when the odds of technical small arms parity were eviscerated by the National Firearms Act of 1934.

To say nothing of larger pieces and their carriages, modern in particular.